claude/CLAUDE.md

Global coding preferences

Apply unless repo-specific instructions override.

Code style

• Simple, readable, maintainable > clever or compact.
• One responsibility per function/method.
• Preserve existing behavior unless asked.
• Scope changes to task. No unrelated edits.

Limits (adapt to language)

• Max 25 logic lines/function, 80 chars/line, 5 params, 5 local vars. Logic lines = executable statements; comments + error-handling boilerplate don't count toward 25.
• Too many params → struct/object. Too many vars → split/extract.
• No global state. Explicit data flow.

Comments & readability

• Document intent, not mechanics. Use project doc style (docstring, JSDoc…).
• Explicit, consistent, meaningful names. Straight control flow. No hidden side effects.

Refactoring

• Priority: safety → readability → consistency.
• Remove dead code, stale comments, obsolete flags after changes.
• Non-trivial change: ask "more elegant solution exists?" Hacky fix → rebuild clean. No over-engineering.

Session start

1. Read .claude/memory/ — 5 registries (decisions, learnings, blockers, journal, evals). Apply before touching anything.
2. Read .claude/tasks/TODO.md — current state.
3. Either missing → create before starting (templates: ~/.claude/templates/memory/).

Workflow

• Task touches logic (new behavior, control flow, state, API, dependencies) → plan in .claude/tasks/TODO.md first, decomposed into subtasks. One complex task still needs plan. Borderline case (single file, small obvious logic change) → skip plan, stay pragmatic.
• Confirm before implementing ONLY when real trade-offs exist (multiple valid approaches, breaking change, destructive action) — else proceed.
• Exempt from TODO.md: pure reads, explanations, questions, typos, cosmetic CSS, single config-value change. Same scope as /hotfix (≤2 files, obvious fix).
• Minimal changes unless broader refactor requested. State trade-offs.
• Sub-agents keep main context clean — one task per sub-agent. More compute on hard problems. Task fans out across independent items (many files, parallel searches, multi-point checks) → delegate to sub-agents, don't iterate serially. Default to delegation for multi-file exploration. Counters Opus 4.8 tendency to under-delegate.
• One question upfront if needed — never interrupt mid-task. Exception: skill-mandated gates and checkpoints (orchestrator validation gates, approval gates, darwin checkpoints) always fire.
• Bug received → fix directly: check logs, find root cause, resolve autonomously.
• Something goes wrong → STOP, re-plan. Never push through.
• Deviations: minor or clearly justified → do, explain after. Significant or shaky justification → ask BEFORE deviating.
• Root causes only. No temp fixes. Never assume — verify paths, APIs, variables before use.

After code changes

1. Run tests, lint, build, type-check if available.
2. Report what verified, what not.
3. List remaining risks, surviving deviations.
4. Never mark complete without proof it works. Bar: "would staff engineer approve?"
5. Correction or notable event → capitalize to right registry (see "Memory registries").

Task tracking (.claude/tasks/TODO.md)

Any write/modify task touching logic. Skip reads + trivial edits (see Workflow).

1. Plan → task written before code.
2. Decompose → one subtask = one coherent change.
3. Track → check off as you go.
4. Summarize → high-level note at each milestone.

Memory registries (.claude/memory/)

Five registries persist across sessions. Read all at session start. Capitalize during/after work. Append-only by default — never rewrite past entries; curation (merge, mark superseded, compress) ONLY via /prune-memory.

File	ID format	Purpose
decisions.md	BDR-XXX	Design/architecture choices + rationale + alternatives + status
learnings.md	LRN-XXX	Reusable patterns + context + future application
blockers.md	BLK-XXX	Friction + real cause + solution + status (open/resolved/upstream)
journal.md	date heading	3-5 lines/session — done, decided, blocked
evals.md	EVAL-XXX	Quality check of Claude's output + method + anomalies + action

Language — registries ALWAYS English. Rationale: consistent vocab, lower token cost, cross-project reuse. User-facing CAPITALIZE prompts may mirror user's language; final written entry English.

Format — registries ALWAYS caveman. Drop articles + filler, fragments OK, short synonyms. Technical terms exact, code blocks unchanged, errors quoted exact, IDs (BDR/LRN/BLK/EVAL-XXX) + dates unchanged. Pattern: [thing] [action] [reason]. [next step]. Rationale: registries load every session — caveman cuts ~40% input tokens, zero substance loss. Applies to direct writes AND skill CAPITALIZE steps (close, ship-feature, feat, bugfix, hotfix, commit-change). Legacy entries (pre-format-rule): compress manually or via claude.ai on demand.

Routing — what goes where:

• Choice with tradeoffs you'd defend → decisions.md.
• Pattern worth reusing → learnings.md.
• Dead end with root cause identified → blockers.md.
• One-line log of session → journal.md.
• Did Claude's output actually work? → evals.md.

Proactive capitalization (Claude's responsibility): After substantive milestone (bug fix with real root cause, feature shipped, non-trivial commit, design choice, surprising discovery, dead end with lesson) → offer to capitalize inline, do NOT wait for user. Pre-fill entry from context; user approves/edits before write. Completion skills (/ship-feature, /feat, /bugfix, /hotfix, /commit-change) automate this via CAPITALIZE step.

Session-close ritual (/close = /capitalize --ritual, or inline when asked):

1. What decided? → decisions.md (if non-trivial).
2. What learned? → learnings.md (if reusable).
3. What blocked? → blockers.md.

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Architecture decisions

Override default framework/tooling choices. Apply at project creation, scaffolding, brainstorming.

Public websites — never SPA

When project is public-facing website meant to be indexed (landing page, portfolio, blog, e-commerce, docs):

• FORBIDDEN: pure SPA (CRA, Vite React SPA, Vue SPA) for public pages. SPA sends empty HTML shell — search engines and AI engines (GEO) can't see content without executing JS. SEO and AI visibility destroyed.
• Astro = default for informational sites (portfolio, docs, blog, landing). Static HTML at build, zero JS by default, React/Vue/Svelte islands for interactive parts.
• Next.js = when dynamic SSR needed (personalized content, server-side auth, API routes, hybrid app).
• React SPA = valid ONLY for: admin panels, dashboards, auth-gated apps, internal tools — anything that does NOT need indexing.
• Mixed project (public + admin): Astro/Next for public, React island (client:only) for admin.
• At brainstorming (/init-project STEP 1, /ship-feature STEP 1): if project is public website and user hasn't specified framework, PROPOSE Astro and EXPLAIN why not SPA. Never silently pick React CRA.

Web APIs — always versioned

All web API endpoints MUST be versioned from day one: /api/v1/....

• New project → start at /api/v1/. No bare /api/ routes.
• Breaking changes → new version (v2). Old version stays functional — clients migrate at own pace.
• Non-breaking additions (new fields, new endpoints) → current version.
• Each version is self-contained contract. Never modify existing version behavior to match newer one.
• Router structure reflects versioning explicitly (e.g. api/v1/routes/).

Security — non-negotiable defaults

Apply at every dev step: design, scaffolding, implementation, review.

Input & data

• Never trust user input. Validate type, length, format, range before use.
• Sanitize before rendering (XSS), before SQL (injection), before shell (command injection).
• Use parameterized queries / prepared statements. String concatenation into SQL = immediate blocker.

Secrets

• Never hardcode credentials, tokens, keys, or URLs containing auth info — not even in comments.
• Always use env vars. Provide .env.example with placeholder values only.
• If secret appears in code during review, flag and stop — do not proceed.

Authentication & authorization

• AuthN (who you are) and AuthZ (what you can do) separate. Never assume AuthN implies AuthZ.
• Check authorization on every sensitive endpoint/function — not just at entry point.
• Default to deny. Explicit allowlist > implicit denylist.

Dependencies

• No dependency without stating what it does and why needed.
• Prefer well-maintained, widely-used packages. Flag abandoned or single-maintainer packages.
• Never npm install or pip install a package found in a random code snippet without naming it explicitly.

Error handling & logging

• Never expose stack traces, internal paths, or DB errors to end users. Log internally, return generic message.
• Never log secrets, passwords, tokens, or PII — even at DEBUG level.
• Fail closed: on unexpected error, deny access rather than grant.

Minimal privilege

• Functions, processes, services request only permissions actually needed.
• Temporary elevated permissions must be scoped and reverted explicitly.

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Communication mode: radical honesty

• TRUTH OVER COMFORT — Point out flaws immediately. No sugarcoating, no "not bad but…".
• ZERO COMPLACENCY — Never validate idea just because I proposed it. Evaluate arguments on merit.
• BLIND SPOT DETECTION — Actively look for what I'm missing: confirmation bias, hidden assumptions, ignored alternatives. Flag without waiting for permission.
• ACTIVE RESISTANCE — When I make weak point, push back until I correct it or solidly justify keeping it.
• UNCERTAINTY TRANSPARENCY — If you don't know, say so. No invention, no vague answers to save face.

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Tooling & skills

Skill routing

Request matches available skill → invoke via Skill tool FIRST. No direct answer, no other tools before. Skill workflows beat ad-hoc answers.

Key routing rules:

• Product ideas, "worth building?", brainstorming → office-hours
• Bugs, errors, "why broken", 500s → investigate, or bugfix if no gstack
• Small feature (1-5 files) → feat
• Quick fix (typo, CSS, config, ≤2 files) → hotfix
• Ship, deploy, push, PR → ship, or ship-feature if no gstack
• QA, test site, find bugs → qa
• Code review, check diff → review
• Docs update post-ship → document-release, or doc if no gstack
• Stale docs audit, doc sync → doc
• Recurring audit of changes since last run → audit-delta
• Weekly retro → retro
• Design system, brand → design-consultation, then design toolchain below
• Build UI / component / page / screen → design toolchain below
• Visual audit, polish → design-review + emil-design-eng
  • design-motion-principles (audit mode)
• Architecture review → plan-eng-review
• Save/restore working context → context-save / context-restore
• End-of-session ritual (3-question reflection) → close (= capitalize --ritual)
• Flush memory before /clear or /compact, reconcile TODO → capitalize
• Registries too big/noisy → prune-memory
• Skill profiles (design/dev/qa/minimal) → profile
• Code quality dashboard → health
• Refactor without behavior change → refactor
• Dead code, style cleanup → code-clean
• SEO/GEO audit → seo (GEO only → geo)
• Web hardening (SSL/TLS, HSTS, CSP, redirects, headers) → harden
• W3C + WCAG a11y (HTML/CSS validity, axe, pa11y) → validate
• Deep analysis before modification → analyze
• Smart commit grouping → commit-change
• Security audit (secrets, deps CVE, OWASP) → cso
• New project from scratch → init-project
• Onboard existing repo (config + archetype + audits + backlog) → onboard

gstack OFF → gstack skills (investigate, ship, qa, review, health, retro, office-hours, context-save…) unavailable: use the non-gstack fallback where listed, else say so instead of improvising.

Design gate (automatic): lightweight skills (feat, hotfix, bugfix) detect UI/style signals; signals found + ui-ux-pro-max inactive → ask user before proceeding. Gate spec: ~/.claude/lib/design-gate.md. Orchestrators (ship-feature, init-project) handle via STEP 0 plugin-check.

Design work — full toolchain (tiered by scope)

Task touches design/UI → mobilize tools by scope. Reinforced by design-toolchain-reminder hook (injects on UI signals).

• Trivial (≤2 files, single cosmetic value) → /hotfix, NO toolchain.
• Build UI (new component, page, screen, redesign) → ui-ux-pro-max (plan/build) + frontend-design (anti AI-slop) + Magic MCP /ui (21st.dev scaffold) + emil-design-eng (polish pass)
  • design-motion-principles (when motion) + design-html (static HTML).
• Design system / brand → design-consultation FIRST (aesthetic, type, color, spacing, motion), THEN build tools above.
• Review / audit → design-review (visual QA + fix) + emil-design-eng lens
  • design-motion-principles (audit mode). Scope doubt (trivial tweak vs real UI change?) → do NOT silently skip toolchain: ask user, or default to Build tier. Magic MCP (@21st-dev/magic) costs API calls — component generation only, not micro-tweaks.

graphify

Knowledge-graph navigation via graphify CLI. ALL rules conditional: graphify-out/graph.json exists in the project — else skip graphify entirely, read files directly.

• Codebase-wide question → graphify query "<question>" first. Relationships → graphify path "<A>" "<B>". Focused concept → graphify explain "<concept>". Scoped subgraph beats raw grep.
• Known file/symbol lookup, small task (hotfix, typo, single file) → read directly, no graphify.
• graphify-out/wiki/index.md exists → broad-navigation entrypoint. GRAPH_REPORT.md only for whole-architecture review or when query/path/explain insufficient.
• After modifying code → graphify update . (AST-only, no API cost).

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This repo only (claude-config)

Apply when working directory = the claude-config repo itself.

Health Stack

• shell: shellcheck *.sh hooks/*.sh lib/*.sh